Affordable housing is closer than you think! A bipartisan Senate bill aims to dramatically reduce the cost of manufactured homes by eliminating outdated chassis requirements. This reform could slash $10,000 off the price of a new home, increasing affordability and availability, especially for first-time homebuyers, seniors, and families in rural areas. Learn how this significant housing policy reform could finally make the dream of homeownership a reality
Historic Bipartisan Senate Vote Advances Affordable Housing: The Senate Banking Committee unanimously passed a landmark housing reform bill, marking the most significant federal housing policy update in a decade. This crucial legislation eliminates outdated manufactured home chassis requirements, slashing costs by up to $10,000 per home and boosting affordability amidst a nationwide housing shortage. The reform unlocks opportunities for more affordable housing options, particularly for first-time homebuyers, seniors, and families in rural areas
Housing policy wonks are particularly excited about one long-sought provision that would end a burdensome and outdated requirement that manufactured homes have a permanent steel trailer frame, called a chassis. That requirement adds cost, limits functionality, and isn’t necessary for the transportation of these mostly non-mobile homes that have evolved from trailers.
As much of the country suffers from a steep housing shortage and affordability crisis, manufactured homes offer some of the most affordable options on the market, particularly in rural and exurban contexts. They’re often starter homes for young families and accessible housing for older people, and they’re increasingly a lucrative, appreciating investment.
Slash Manufactured Home Costs: Senate Votes to Eliminate Outdated Chassis Rule. This bipartisan bill eliminates a 50-year-old requirement for steel chassis in manufactured homes, saving buyers up to $10,000, enabling multi-story construction, and expanding building locations. Industry experts hail this as a major step towards affordable housing solutions
Slashing Manufactured Home Costs: Senate Votes to Eliminate Outdated Chassis Requirements. A bipartisan Senate bill promises to dramatically reduce the price of manufactured homes by eliminating unnecessary steel chassis requirements. This reform could instantly cut $10,000 – a 10% reduction – from the cost of a typical home, making homeownership more attainable for countless families. This significant cost savings represents an unprecedented opportunity to address the nation's housing affordability crisis
Bipartisan Senate bill poised to slash manufactured home costs: The Senate is set to pass a landmark housing reform package eliminating outdated chassis requirements, potentially saving homebuyers up to $10,000. This crucial step towards affordable housing awaits House approval to become law, significantly impacting the affordability crisis and boosting the manufactured housing market
Ending the chassis requirement would mean “there’s a little bit more room for innovation in what could be built, and less wasted steel, and lower cost, ultimately, to build the things,” said Sean Roberts, CEO of Villa Homes, which builds manufactured housing in California and Colorado. “It’s arguably better for the environment, as well, because you’re using timber frame construction rather than steel.”
Roberts calls his manufactured homes the “Toyota Camry of housing” — affordable, “high-performance,” and “very good quality.” And, he joked, they’re probably not going to win any design awards.
Clayton, one of the country’s biggest producers of manufactured homes, also celebrated the move.
“Enabling the option of building homes without a permanent chassis drives innovative design and leverages efficiencies which can lower costs for home buyers,” the company said in a statement.
Since 1974, the federal government has regulated manufactured homes under a set of rules known as the HUD code, which overrides state and local building codes. The idea was to modernize and standardize trailers and mobile homes across the country.
The permanent chassis, which is part of the HUD code, has dramatically shrunk the manufactured housing industry since the 1970s. There’s evidence the chassis requirement was pushed by traditional homebuilders to suppress the booming manufactured housing industry, as Vox’s Rachel Cohen recently reported. Today, about 100,000 manufactured homes are produced a year — down from a peak of nearly 580,000 in 1973 — and make up less than 10% of all new construction each year.
While we build cars, planes, and boats much more efficiently than ever before, American home-building productivity has stagnated. That’s in part because the industry still does so much on-site, custom construction, forgoing the benefits of standardization, climate control, and speed that factories offer. Pre-fabricated buildings — or parts of them — can be produced more cheaply and efficiently. While workers prepare the foundation, the home can simultaneously be constructed indoors without weather and other interruptions slowing down the process.
A bipartisan consensus around deregulating HUD-code housing has been building for years. In a major change to the regulations, the Biden administration last year reformed the code to allow up to four dwelling units per manufactured structure.
Still, it will take more than just federal deregulation to fully unleash the industry and disrupt traditional homebuilding. Manufactured housing faces other challenges, including a lack of consistent demand and investment, high costs of transporting a finished product to the building site, the decentralized nature of construction, and insufficient financing, according to Mark Erlich, a former officer of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters and the author of “The Way We Build: Restoring Dignity to Construction Work.”
Manufactured housing has also long been dogged by stigma. There’s a widespread perception that single-wides and double-wides are inferior to traditional so-called “stick-built” housing that’s constructed piece by piece on the site. The design, functionality, marketing, and perception of manufactured homes would need to improve before they become more popular, Erlich said.
While chassis reform is a big deal for the world of manufactured housing, that sector is still a small part of the broader housing landscape.
“We’ve got a housing crisis in this country, and this feels sort of like nibbling at the edges,” Erlich said.
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